We have 5 US voters in my family up here and nobody has decided yet. My s-i-l in Maryland was still undecided yesterday, too. My kids never tell me who they're voting for, the secretive little rats. Husband is going with Obama. We sat up and watched Hilllary last night on Letterman, at least until my last yawn sent me off to bed about 10 minutes into it. Not that she bored me, but it was late.

Hey!! Maggie (from AMC) is on Y&R today! Gotta go dry my hair before it does its own thing a la fizzy.

KaeEll wrote:

---

Moore, where the heck are ya?

---

Remember that doll I told you about -- the one that I had to create the pattern for? Well, I got serious about it after the holidays, and finally finished it. I was on a real push to get it done the past couple of weeks, and I also made a second little surprise doll for the little girl.

Both dolls were delivered to a very excited child on Sunday afternoon (I got back home in time for the game), and to a happy mom! I have to admit that the doll ended up looking very much like the original, although the project darned near killed me...

I had met the mom last October when she first commissioned this project, and when she gave me another version of the doll that I was supposed to duplicate. The favorite doll (the one that's in rags now) stayed with the little girl, but I had a picture of what she had looked like brand new. The mom is a really nice woman; she has twin seven-year-old boys, and the little girl also has a twin brother, and they're both five. The little girl is a DARLING blue-eyed redhead. Just precious... I'm not good at guessing people's ages, but she's a young mother, probably somewhere in her mid-thirties -- very busy (as you can imagine, with two sets of twins), very attractive, and very down-to-earth.

When I agreed to take the project, I knew that it was going to be difficult to recreate the doll without a pattern, but I quoted a low price for it because we dollmakers never get what the handmade dolls are worth anyway. If I added up the time that I put into this project, and charged for it, it would be a $600.00 toy!!! Not practical. But, I took the project because I really wanted to do it for this little girl... I related to her in that I used to be very hard on my dolls too, and this little girl had "loved" her favorite doll into shreds. LOL... Her mom wanted to duplicate the doll before it disintegrated entirely, and I have to say that we dealt with this issue just in the nick of time!

Anyway, the mom and I were going to try to get together last week, and she gave me directions to her house in Maryland (a very exclusive area). It turned out that I still needed more time to finish the project, so we met somewhere else on Sunday. In the meantime, I had GoogleEarthed her location to be certain that I knew where to go.

Wow. Well, there are a lot of fancy neighborhoods in the Washington, DC area, and this part of Maryland is one of them. It turns out that the little girl and her "Dolly" live in a brand new $3.5 million house. I'm just sorry that I didn't have a chance to see the inside of it since we decided to switch meeting locations on Sunday...

(I took a picture of the finished doll, and I'll post it later.)

So, we met at the designated location, and I got to meet the little girl for the first time. She's just precious, and she arrived bearing flowers! She was thrilled to meet her disintegrating doll's new twin sister, and we all hung out for about a half an hour before we had to head back to our respective houses. The mom handed me some rolled up cash which I stuck in my purse without looking (which would have been rude).

I discovered later that she'd paid me more than twice what I'd asked for, and of course I had those beautiful flowers too!!! Nice lady...

So that's where I've been.

Moore ideas wrote:

So that's where I've been.

---

Okay, an acceptable explanation. You know, you can't disappear around here without giving all of us a good reason. We're a nosy bunch, easily offended by MIA fellow posters, lol. We've even been known to make up elaborate schemes to track down anyone who goes missing for any length of time.

And so now, where do you think Brandon's gone? Surfing in Hawaii again? That rascal. Harumph. He didn't even ask our advice on swim trunks. I was looking forward to looking at pictures of him modelling them.

which reminds me, does anyone besides our MIA Brandon have a contact for Kris? And has anyone heard from John over the last few months

Hey all! Sorry I disappeared! Work's been busy, and I'm just so tired at night!

We had pretty fair weather today, but we get more of the white stuff tomorrow. So, it can sit on top of the snow we got yesterday. BLECH.

What a fantastic story Moore! I would love to see a picture of the dolls!

I had no idea Bran was in Hawaii! Little booger. I must get on here more often.

Yesterday was a tad crummy for me. I went to my brother and sister in law's house to pick up my chairs and a few scraggling pieces of mail, and she handed me a bag in which she had placed my mail and things that she said belonged to me. When I got home, I found those things to be the unopened Christmas gifts Jackson and I had picked out for her. Who does that? I bawled for a little bit, and decided to get over it.
I'm not sure there is much that can be done about this relationship now....I mean, she's now even deleted me from her myspace page. Uh, okay.

If she can't pull on her big girl panties, then I'm done with her. Any ounce of respect I might have had left inside of me for her, is gone.

aww Jojo thats terrible. I just don't understand how some people can't value family the way they should

Hey Jojo she's a little Bitch, don't let her get under your skin anymore. Her loss, not having you in her life!
Rise above her behaviour and sore with the Eagles, not the Turkeys and Chickens (something I read last night)

Kae's very right. I mean gees if she can treat you and not to mention Jackson like this. What kinda woman can she reaqlly be. I'm feeling really sorry for your brother right now because I could only imagine the "wonders" of being married to such a snooty brat.

OHhh i forgot to set up the record .. thanks kae3!

I could just call up your SIL right now and give her a piece of my mind!

Aw, thanks Ladies! It feels good seeing all the great words you wrote. I had an idea of inviting her and treating her to lunch one day, but I don't think I can do that. I was going to try to extend the olive branch, but this is just too much.

She and my brother are planning on traveling to Arkansas this year, and then head up with my mother to Oklahoma for the annual family reunion. My mother is worried, becuase she spoke to my grandmother, who can not wait to get a hold of my sister in law. She is livid. She understands things happen, maybe I could have done some things better when I lived there. It was all in the way it was handled afterwards. I mean, I almost had to live in a hotel room on Christmas. My sister in law has been childish, unrelenting and it sounds like this summer, that karma may come back and bite her in the butt.

Kae, you didn't sound harsh at all...right on the money!

Jojo I am with Tina, don't extend the olive branch. It seems to me you did when you got her Christmas presents after the way she treated you and your son. And good for the rest of your family for sticking up for you. I do feel so sad for your poor brother

Yeah, the gifts are the only olive branch I offered, and I ain't offering anymore!

And let me clear everyone up on my brother. He's a mega-butt hole when he wants to be, and he's not completely innocent here. Yeah, she's in his ear on a lot of this stuff, but he's got his own mind too. And he likes her because they're so much alike. Hard headed, anal, perfectionists, and they are really full of themselves. It wasn't too long ago, my brother was in desperate need of help, and we as his family gave it to him. So, while he's made more attempts than her to be loving and civil, he's still a butt.

I just hope my brother and I can repair our relationship. If she doesn't want to be a part of that, fine.